


Aviator Jackets

by AsWeAreNow



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Swearing, nongraphic discussion of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28603587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsWeAreNow/pseuds/AsWeAreNow
Summary: Amelia decides to replace her old leather jacket, but she refuses to wear a women’s jacket and the men’s jackets don’t fit. More importantly, none of them can bring back the past.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Aviator Jackets

Going to Macy's is supposed to be fun, right?

Amelia thinks so, but after a long while of searching through women's leather jackets with mounting irritation, she finally goes to the men's section. Again. Amelia doesn't like women's jackets and staunchly refuses to buy one; men's jackets just have better designs. Even so, Macy's doesn't have a particularly good selection; everything here is just so... new.

Really, Amelia doesn't think she'll find a suitable leather jacket ever again. It doesn't help that her tastes are rather specific; she wants an aviator jacket, something warm and soft, but is also picky over the sheepskin involved. How is a sheepskin jacket supposed to withstand a fight, after all? While Amelia had once owned a sheepskin jacket, she'd thrown it away a couple weeks ago, about thirty years too late; the fur lining was long gone, but she had continued to wear it every single day until there was a gaping hole in the side. It had become a part of her; it had accompanied her through many tough times, but Amelia didn't believe in saving trash and now it was gone. That jacket is what Amelia really wants, but she won't find it again. She pushes it from her mind.

Amelia is still mourning the loss of her jacket, and with it, the freshness of being #1- how beautiful it had been when being #1 was not a burden, when she did not know what _responsibility_ meant, when she was just so excited rather than relieved to see new developments in her technology- when a man says, "Do you ever think to smile? You have such a great face."

"Do you ever think of minding your own fucking business? Fuck yourself," she responds. Amelia suddenly remembers that she has not carried her baseball bat into the Macy's, but instead of being worried about her own safety she is only more pissed off. This man wouldn't have spoken to her if he'd noticed she was carrying a baseball bat, but _no_ , people can't even carry _baseball bats_ into stores anymore. When is violence ever not an answer? Open carry is legal, but people would still get all pissy about her baseball bat. So a gun's okay, but a baseball bat isn't? As if it's so easy to swing a baseball bat as opposed to pulling a trigger. Amelia thinks that having a gun is a better deterrent for a situation like this, but she has yet to find a gun that isn't disgraceful. She'll never understand those who find guns beautiful; what's so admirable about a weapon that does its job with almost no effort exerted from the user?

And now the logistics of bothering someone looking at clothes in the opposite gender's department just annoy her. "Why did you even ask? What if I was buying a jacket for my boyfriend? I'm a woman looking through the men's department for leather jackets. Why would you think I was looking for myself?" She is looking for herself, but she thinks it a valid enough point.

The man is already gone. _Fucking pig_ , she thinks. Amelia continues to look through the jackets, selects a few that look nice. None of them are her aviator jacket. None of them will make her feel so invincible again. None of them will bring the past back to life. Sure, the past hadn't been very kind to Amelia; however, her country had thrived and she had been free to enjoy this, as she hadn't understood what it meant to compete on a global scale. Not truly. Not until the Cold War, and even then, it was glorious. Power was intoxicating. Competition was beautiful. That was what Amelia had thought at the time, but the twenty-first century had proven otherwise; Amelia is just so tired these days. She finally understands what it means to be #1. It's not watching a country collapse and then being the best; it's watching a country collapse and then looking at the instability left behind, while another nation creeps up to compete as well. She's not a kid anymore, that's her problem.

As she makes her way to the changing room, she hopes that, by some miracle, at least one will fit comfortably.

Amelia loves to fool herself. It's one of her favorite things to do. So as she puts on the first jacket, a black moto, she tells herself: _I already wear feminine clothing. I could probably pull off a men's jacket fine; it's not like I only wear men's clothes. Besides, I wore that aviator jacket for a super long time, and that was a men's jacket! Yeah, I can totally pull it off. Totally. And sure it's a moto, but maybe a change of pace would be nice._

_I'm not replacing my jacket. Nothing can replace the past. This is merely a new investment, like when a friend dies, so you get a new friend. I don't want to be alone forever, do I? I need a new jacket._

Amelia stands with her back facing the mirror, trying to convince herself that everything will be alright. She tries to focus on the emotion this jacket gives her: mainly disappointment, which is discouraging. Amelia isn't the sort to wear moto jackets. She wants to look nice rather than rebellious; perhaps she would have to get brown leather, at least. Amelia had read an article the other day addressing those that wear aviator jackets as "pretty boys", and she decides that's how she wants to feel. If England describes her as a 'posh arsehole', she'll know she did her job right.

...but hey, maybe she'll grow into a moto jacket. 

So she turns around, finally, and is disappointed beyond belief. Somehow, this is more painful than the economy taking a dive. She looks terrible, not just because the jacket is ill-fitted but also because it just doesn't match her. It's obvious; somehow it just doesn't work.

Many people have looked at Amelia and suspected her to be a leather enthusiast. She wore a leather jacket every day, after all. But in truth, Amelia hadn't known anything about leather until two days ago, when she'd decided to fill the void her aviator jacket left behind. She'd only watched a video on how to know if leather jackets fit properly two hours ago.

The first tip the man had given was about the shoulders. He had explained, rather aggressively, that the seams needed to line up with the curvature of the shoulders or else it would look bad. (The comments had all berated the man on his mannerisms, but Amelia had quite liked it.) The seams of this jacket don't line up with Amelia's shoulders, and sure enough it looks bad. Moving on.

The second tip: check the underarms. Generally, the man had said, the armholes should not be too large; otherwise, the leather jacket would appear to hang off the frame rather than showing a snug fit. Well, Amelia doesn't need a snug fit, but this also looks terrible. The armholes are too big for a regular man, and this is only exacerbated by her small, female frame. She likes this jacket, she really does, but it just looks so much better when it's not on her body.

Most embarrassingly of all, the sleeves are much too long. They reach Amelia's fingertips, which is inconvenient at best and hindering at worst. What if she needs to swing her baseball bat for whatever reason, and she drops it because of this? No, this wouldn't do.

The other jackets go similarly. After all this, Amelia reluctantly goes back to the women's section. On the way out, she sees a man- the same man from earlier- buying the leather jacket she had liked.

/\ 

Amelia spends the next few days clicking through article after article and page after page of discussion on leather jackets. She looks at pictures of women in leather jackets. All of the women's ones are too... woman-ish. Amelia doesn't prefer androgyny, but still; the jackets just seem so exaggerated, somehow. These women look pretty in their coats, but their garments rub Amelia the wrong way. In all of these articles, she hasn't seen _one_ woman wearing an aviator jacket.

After days of searching, she finally orders a leather jacket. Modeled after an RAF uniform, it's almost disgraceful, but US-UK relations are totally great. Nobody will mind if she wears this. She places the order and waits.

...

The jacket arrives a few days later. Amelia tries to get herself excited as she brings in the box, but... well, she wouldn't think about that. She tears it open, cuts carefully through the plastic, and pulls out the jacket. It is just as it was in the pictures; made of sheepskin, it is incredibly soft. The jacket is beautiful. Amelia cannot think of a single complaint.

She puts it on immediately even though she has nowhere to be. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in the front room, she realizes it doesn't fit right. Of course Amelia didn't expect it to, but it just doesn't look right. Even if Amelia was a guy, it still wouldn't fit. Her old jacket was just perfect, and nothing can ever replace that. Although it was a men's jacket, it fit perfectly, if not to her body then to her personality. This doesn't match. Amelia gets the overwhelming feeling that she should not be in this jacket.

This RAF cosplay is not her old jacket. The collar is nice; everything else is either too big or too small. She thinks, _Maybe if I drape it over my shoulders, the way Germany does..._

So she tries that, too. It doesn't feel any better, and she thinks, _Maybe I should have bought the B-3 Bomber jacket instead of an RAF jacket_ , but she knows it wouldn't really make a difference. She is the problem; she still cannot think of a single complaint about the jacket that doesn't tie directly back to her. Everything is perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> First appeared 6 Jan 2021 on FFN. Crossposted from my account, of the same name.
> 
> A comment would be great. Have an excellent day/night and stay safe.


End file.
